Ernie Esser (May 19, 1980 - March 8, 2015)

I am very sorry to have to report that Ernie Esser – Postdoctoral Fellow at the Seismic Laboratory for Imaging and Modelling (SLIM (UBC)), passed away from complications of pneumonia on his trip back from Europe.

Ernie – alias "Ernie the Man", was a fantastic researcher working on a wide variety of problems ranging from full-waveform inversion to blind-deconvolution. Ernie was an extremely enthusiastic and extremely talented researcher who was, above all, immensely generous with his time and ideas. This made him a key figure in our group and the ideal "go-to-guy" for anybody who wanted to learn about large-scale optimization and scientific computing.

As a person, Ernie also had a fantastic sense of humour, never complained, and was always in for a double-espresso. He will be dearly dearly missed by his family, everybody he interacted with at UBC, by our sponsors, and by the scientific community at large.

Cards can be send to Ernie's parents

Doug and Rita Esser

19037 90th Place NE

Bothell, Washington 98011, USA

A celebration of Ernie will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 21, at Life Celebrations by Washelli, 18224 103rd Ave. NE, Bothell, WA 98011.

Over the next few months, we will work on different ways to recognize Ernie's major contributions to science in the form of a scientific meeting and related activities. We welcome any thoughts or suggestions you may have. Thank you.

On behalf of the SLIM team,
Felix J. Herrmann

The BC Flag (Main Mall and Agronomy Road) will be lowered on Wednesday, March 11, in remembrance.